Vehicles are often used for towing trailers carrying various types of cargo and are, thus, referred to herein as towing vehicles. Examples of such trailers include, but are not limited to, travel trailers, snowmobile trailers, boat trailers, horse trailers, car trailers, and the like. In many cases, the height of a trailer being pulled by a towing vehicle results in a driver of the towing vehicle seeing only the trailer when looking into the towing vehicle's rear-view mirror. As such, the driver has limited to zero visibility of an area behind the trailer, which adversely impacts the driver's ability to pull and back-up the trailer in a safe and convenient manner. In the context of the disclosures made herein, trailers and motor vehicles being pulled by a towing vehicle are examples of towed units (i.e., a wheeled structure being towed by a vehicle). Similarly, vehicles are often towed (i.e., can be towed units) and present similar adverse issues to towing a trailer.
Integration of a rear-view camera into vehicles that are often used as towing vehicles is well known. For example, pick-up trucks often include a rear-view camera mounted on a tailgate, bumper, or other rear-most portion thereof for the purpose of viewing an area behind the truck, viewing a trailer hitch connection while towing a trailer, and/or viewing a trailer while towing it. However, when a trailer is connected to such a towing vehicle, a field of view of the camera can be severely limited in that the trailer can occupy a significant portion of the camera's field of view. As such, a towing vehicle mounted rear-view camera typically offers limited visibility behind a trailer being towed by the towing vehicle.
Various types of aftermarket (i.e., user-installed accessory item) back-up camera systems are commercially available from companies such as, for example, Master Lock Company and Weldex Corporation. These aftermarket back-up camera systems include a visual display apparatus and a camera that wirelessly transmits images (e.g., a streaming video image) to the visual display apparatus, thereby allowing the images from the camera to be displayed on the visual display apparatus. Providing that a particular aftermarket back-up camera system has an adequate transmit range between the visual display apparatus and the camera, the camera of such a system can be mounted on the rear portion of a trailer being towed by a towing vehicle and the visual display apparatus can be mounted in the cabin at a position viewable by the driver. While this utilization of such a back-up camera system does provide for visibility behind the trailer, it is not without shortcomings. One such shortcoming is that the visual display apparatus is precluded from being mounted at a location that the driver is most used to looking at for gaining information about the area behind the vehicle, which is the rear-view mirror. Another such shortcoming is that available mounting locations for the visual display apparatus can adversely affect visibility through the windshield when mounted on a top surface of the dashboard (e.g., below the rear-view mirror, behind the steering wheel, to the left of the steering wheel, etc), can take the driver's attention away the road forward of the vehicle when mounted on a rear-facing surface of the dashboard or on the center console, and/or can interfere with operation/access to other controls/features of the towing vehicle when mounted on a rear-facing surface of the dashboard over/adjacent to controls/climate control vents.
Therefore, an image display system with a multi-mode display screen that enables display screen size dependent upon presence of a rear-view camera mounted on a towed unit, that displays images provided by the rear-view camera mounted on the towed unit, and that overcomes shortcomings with utilizing aftermarket back-up camera systems to provided related functionality would be advantageous, desirable, and useful.